Have you ever wondered what happens to the lost baggage at the airport? At the Miami International Airport, these lost pieces of baggage were auctioned for profit. MIA has an enormous amount of discarded carry-ons and duffel bags, forgotten bikes, surf boards, laptops, cell phones, cameras, even crutches and paintings. All of them were unclaimed or do not carry any identification.

Many auctions of this type happen to a lot of airports in the US, with over thousands of baggage which is equivalent to millions of U.S. dollars. Bidders cannot open these unclaimed pieces of baggage and if they want to place their bets, they need to have confidence on instincts on what is inside the baggage. These pieces of baggage could be simply dirty laundry or expensive jewelry.

Bidders could only open the baggage if they win the bidding and that is the only time they will know what are inside the baggage. There is an instance that a bidder got lucky with the suitcase containing 10,000 pounds.

In these auctions, you have to be careful in order for you not to spend more money since biddings are determined by the people’s bidding power. Therefore, it is very important that you have your game plan or strategy when you enter a baggage auction. A strategy for airport baggage auctions will let you save lots of money.

There are various strategies that you can use to optimize the benefits that you will get in airport baggage auctions. The strategy that you will use in international airport baggage auctions should have different aspects that you should concentrate on for it to become effective and very useful.

Research

In auctions, you have to know that there are lots of competitors just like a championship in any sports. In order for you to succeed in the auction, you have to conduct your own research on the tactics that your competitors will use during the actual bidding. Try to know more about them and the bidding styles they use at the auction. You can base this through past auctions where they got involved in as this will surely help you to have leverage.

Disciplined Bidding

In any bidding that you want to get involved into, you need to employ disciplined bidding, meaning that you need to maintain your rational mind as you make your bids. You don’t have to hurry in making your bids, get attached emotionally to the biddings or fail in setting the budget for your bid which will be your guide on the bidding.

In any bidding strategy, you also need to know when is the best moment or time for you to place your bid. You have to place your bid during those times where there are less competitors and you need to bid in intervals.

With a strategy at hand, there is a big chance that you will succeed. But if you want to optimize your international airport auction strategy, you have to grow your experience in auctions and have confidence in your instincts to avoid failure or getting just laundry instead of those expensive items.

Every year, there are thousands of bags getting lost in the international airport by passengers or airlines worldwide. Just in Miami International Airport, statistics show that there are approximately 10,000 cases of lost bags yearly. The question is, what happens to these lost bags and the things inside them? They do not just disappear because some of them appear in places like auction houses. In Alabama, there is an Unclaimed Baggage Center that accommodates hundreds of visitors every year.

Many people see unclaimed baggage auctions as their opportunity to turn lost baggage into cash. Just think of the items that people usually carry when they travel. With these, you are assured that most of the baggage contains many valuable items such mobile phones, laptops, e-readers, jewelry, perfume and even cash. Due to the compact nature of these bags, you can have a good fortune in turning lost baggage into cash.

What Happens Before and During the Auction?

Studies show that about 99.5% of lost pieces of luggage are returned to the owners by the airline companies that originally lost them. However, if the airline company cannot contact or find the owner of a misplaced bag, after all its effort, it will be sold toUnclaimedLuggageCenter. The airlines have allowance period usually 3 or 4 months before they can sell the lost bags. When that period lapsed, they will already put the lost baggage for auctions.

Based on the transportation lines and airlines contract, theAlabama’sUnclaimedBaggageCenterwill receive process, sort out, give prices as well as sell all the items found on the lost luggage. After that, they will arrange and categorize all the items before they display them on the store. This will be the perfect time for people to examine the goods at their own leisure, thus turning lost baggage into cash.

Turning Lost Baggage into Cash: Your Options

Aside from Unclaimed Baggage Centers, liquidators and wholesalers also purchase luggage and goods at auctions. Then, they will auction them through websites which many people see it as a perfect place to grab the hot deals on discounted products for re-sale and turns lost baggage into cash. There is no assurance that you will find something remarkable goods in closed baggage. However, you always have an opportunity in finding something valuable, thus turning lost baggage into cash.

Another very common option in turning lost baggage into cash is by visiting government websites. There are federal auction sites available where you can search for great deals of vehicles, electronics, unclaimed luggage and any things that have been in the custody of the government. Then you can re-sell them to different online sites at higher price.

What Benefit can you get from Auctions?

The best thing about lost baggage auctions is that it allows you to save a lot of money. Valuable items can be purchased at a lower price than buying them off brand new in stores. You can keep those things for yourself or make a profit out of it. You can always re-sell those items over the internet such as eBay, wait for someone to buy them off and double your money.

When people travel, they usually pack their best clothes, jewelry, toiletries and of course, electronics such as mobile phones or laptops. There is always a possibility that these bags will get lost especially on international airports. There are thousands cases of lost baggage that have been reported every year. In fact, numbers show that just in MiamiInternationalAirport, there have been an estimated of 10,000 cases of lost bags every year. Airlines fault, lack or incomplete address tags, disruptive weather as well as bags left on overhead compartments due to owner’s negligence are just some of the reasons why bags get lost.

What happens to these bags if rightful owners can no longer be found? The airline companies do everything they can to do search the bags and return them to the owners. About 95-98% of lost bags are delivered back to the owners. However, if all the efforts failed and no one claimed for the lost luggage after 3-4 months, they will now sell those to auction houses. When this happens, profiting from lost baggage will take place and many people are waiting for this opportunity.

Profiting from lost luggage through auction is the best thing about this situation. Here are several steps on how profiting from lost luggage can be done.

Auction house – Look for an auction house such as Greasbys located inTooting,United KingdomandUnclaimedBaggageCentersituated inAlabama. Usually, viewing is being held every Monday afternoon and the actual auction takes place the following day.

Luggage or Valuable Items – During baggage auctions, there are 2 options that you can choose from. The auctioneers get valuable items such as gadgets and clothes from the luggage and sell each item individually. The other option is to bid for closed luggage while hoping that they contain valuable items because the auctioneers provide vague details only.

Evaluate – After you viewed the collection of items that will be auctioned on the following morning, you can ponder about the items and their prices. You need to evaluate how much profiting from lost luggage you can make from a particular bid. However, this is hard to tell if the luggage are auctioned closed.

The internet is a perfect place to obtain an idea on how much the items cost. You can search on eBay the worth of every cases as well as the suggested retail price. This allows you to set your limit during the actual bidding. Profiting from lost baggage is like a gamble since you have no idea about the items on that bag. You are fortunate if the luggage contains valuable items but it could also contain junks.

Sell them or keep them – After you paid the items from auctions, you can decide if you want to keep them for yourself or you can start online selling. Post them on eBay along with their pictures and a bit of description and wait for customers to show up.

Profiting from lost luggage has been a practice for many people who want to save and earn extra income. Indeed, baggage auction is a good place to get good deals and turn lost baggage into cash.

In any international airport, there are hundreds of lost pieces of luggage that have never been recovered by their owners. These lost pieces of baggage at airports in the United States are taken into auctions. One airport in the United States which is home to these unfortunate pieces of baggage is the Miami International Airport where in a recent auction, Mark Meyer got lucky of getting 10,000 worth of jewelry.

Lots of travelling individuals who go to the annual luggage auction at the Miami International Airport know how many unclaimed baggage exist and the worth of these uncollected items. Though lots of these pieces of luggage are claimed within a day, there are still lots of bags that are left unclaimed throughout the year and these falls into auctions at the international airport.

Anyone can go to the airport and attend auctions as they’re open for the public to place their bids. Airports like the Miami International Airport post notices for auctions in the newspapers and through the internet. People who want to join these public auctions can also go to the local airport where they will have firsthand information about the schedule of these unclaimed baggage biddings.

Lots of people out there want to try their luck at this type of auction. Here are some tricks about the trade.

There is no overnight success in unclaimed luggage biddings

If you want to become a strong bidder at this type of auctions, you need to have patience and establish an infrastructure where you can sell the items you acquire. The process is like everything that you encounter in life. Just like the saying practice makes perfect and if you want to know the trade well, you have to join these auctions regularly but do it with intervals.

Inspect luggage before place your bid

Attendees of airport auctions are not allowed to see what is inside the baggage that will be auctioned, but people can inspect them before the bidding process starts. In unclaimed airport baggage auctions, you will never know the items that you are going to acquire for sure, not unless you have an x-ray vision like Superman. You can only assume basing on the size, condition and brand of the suitcase or items that you are eyeing at the auction. You have to keep in mind that rich individuals use signature items whenever they travel and carry-ons have better treasures compared to those checked bags. But still, no one can see through those items at the airport auctions. Even though you have good instincts, it will still fail you sometime. You will waste good amount of cash on bags or items that don’t worth a penny.

It is rewarding to know what is inside those handbags and jewelry because some unclaimed airport luggage auctions place lost handbags and jewelry into see-through containers. You have to be good at eyeing and recognizing a label and you will have more sense what a bag might worth. You should know how to choose David Yurman pieces of jewelry, Gucci and Coach bags as for sure, they contain valuable items.

Baggage auctions are one way of making profit out of lost baggage. If your pleasant air travel has turned into a disaster when you lost your luggage, chances are, it ended in one of these baggage auctions. According to the news, the US has a yearly unclaimed lost airline baggage of about 1%. It sounds like it is such a small percentage, right? But it’s not since there are approximately 700 million air passengers that passes via US airports per year. Airlines with lost and found luggage hold these luggage until the rightful owners claim it. The entire unclaimed luggage and all its contents eventually go to its central location, the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsdale in Alabama, USA. This operation turned lost baggage into one profitable outlet.

How Do Baggage Auction Work?

Baggage auctions are everywhere around the US. This is because the disaster of losing your luggage and million others has become a treasure for others. Majority of major airlines have a contract with UBC or Unclaimed Baggage Center in handling lost luggage. UBC receives these items from the airline and waits for 90 days for the owners to claim them, before finally sorting the baggage for any item of value. These items will be placed in different auction sites and put up to sale at cut-rates usually from 20% to 80% of the item’s retail cost. If there is a baggage auction located near you, you can bid on the bargained luggage and turn it into profit.

How to Make Money with Baggage Auctions

You might be lucky to find treasure in baggage auctions like many others if you follow these steps:

Find a baggage auction near you. The UBC in Alabama has the largest baggage auction in the entire USA. There is no existing directory for baggage auctions but the internet can be a great place to search for these auctions. You might be lucky to find one close to where you are located.

View the entire luggage prior your purchase. Most of auctions conduct viewing day which normally takes place in advance of auction date. This is an important method to acquire information on what are being sold. Make some research as well as formulating your bid. Take down notes on the luggage items which are in good shape and your prospect can be turned into a big profit.

Research potential buys after the viewing day. There are auction sites online where you can assess what others would be eager to pay in certain used luggage types. When you are able to get an idea on the price of the items, you have to take note that your bid price will have little impact on the items inside the luggage. Therefore, you can still make tidy profit even if the baggage you bought is full of items that are not in good shape.

Decide on the maximum price on your bid on your researched items then bid accordingly during the auction day. It would be helpful if you will focus on how much certain pieces in baggage auctions will be sold. Oftentimes, auctioneers only give but vague details on the contents of the luggage being auctioned.

Baggage auctions can really be a place where you can bag good bargains. Just keep in mind that you can’t rely on the baggage contents in making profit, until such time that you finally bought the piece.